Well, I guess that's it. The EU is done for.   Europe was doomed in any eventuality, of course. Ultimately the only sustainable way to compete with countries like China and Bangladesh is to lower the living standards of the majority to similar levels.  When it comes to grim reading about the current European condition, it does not rain but it pours.  The latest catalogue of unremitting gloom (unless you're a German) comes in a 49-page survey of public opinion in eight EU countries conducted in March by Pew pollsters.  The results show support for the EU has shrunk from 60% to 45% in a year on average across the eight countries.  The more detailed findings are that public support for EU integration has eroded strongly, with Germans alone in favor of handing more powers to Brussels to tackle the four-year economic and financial crisis that is severely sapping EU confidence and reinforcing the sense of inexorable medium-term decline.  "Positive views of the EU are at or near their low point in most of the countries surveyed, even among the young," said the pollsters, who talked to nearly 8,000 people.  It is striking how the policy responses of EU leaders to the currency crisis are at such odds with public opinion, as centripetal political action clashes with centrifugal national moods.  The crisis management of the past three years has essentially seen Berlin, Brussels, and others resort to technocratic fixes in an incremental process of pooling economic and fiscal policy powers in the eurozone.  Outside of Germany, however, public support for surrendering such powers from the national level to Brussels, as is happening, is declining rapidly, generating an ever widening "democratic deficit" in the EU that the leaders regularly bemoan but have done nothing to address.  In a big speech on Europe last month, the leading German political thinker, Jürgen Habermas, diagnosed the elite policy responses to the crisis and concluded that "postponing democracy is always dangerous".  Pew's findings dovetail with Eurobarometer poll results revealed last month in the Guardian that showed a collapse in public support for the EU in the union's six biggest countries, making up two-thirds of the half-billion population.  The survey results are particularly spectacular for France, reinforcing the sense of drift a year into the term of President François Hollande and underlining the estrangement between Paris and Berlin.  "The prolonged economic crisis is separating the French from the Germans – threatening the Franco-German axis that has long driven European integration. And it has separated the Germans from everyone else.  "No European country is becoming more dispirited and disillusioned faster than France. French public opinion has soured on a number of measures in the last year … Even more dramatically, French public opinion on a range of issues is now looking less like that in Germany and more like that in Spain, Italy and Greece … The French are also beginning to doubt their commitment to the European project, with 77% believing European economic integration has made things worse for France, an increase of 14 points." Pretty much the only optimism evident in the survey is in Germany, leading the pollsters to conclude that the Germans are living "on a different continent". This acute divergence in perception on how the crisis has affected Europe, say officials and diplomats closely involved in the crisis management, makes things much more difficult to fix because the cultural and psychological realities in the different countries are so varied.

Europe is an extremely poor place to do business

Europe is an extremely poor place to do business and its just getting worse. None of the Internationals wants to do business anymore because most of them lose money hand over fist due to EU regulations and the poor economic conditions and lack of a proper business environment. Many have stuck around while racking up quarterly losses in EMEA simply waiting for things to get better and trying to hold on to market share, but that will not keep up forever and the cracks are already showing. Disappointing eurozone PMI data dampens recovery...Manufacturing data from the eurozone shows that the sector contracted for the 15th month running, painting a 'bleak picture' and dampening hopes of an economic recovery in the region.mpens recovery ? There is no recovery. Its all hot air and bollox spouted by ministers and euro ministers, bankers and the IMF.We're going doooooown and we know it, hence the public anger. In the last 2 weeks alone. 250 jobs gone at severn seas, 350 at kimberley clark, over a 1000 lost at ford, now 6000 comet workers jobs on the line. I was added to the jobless figures myself a couple of months back so I know how things are feeling at the sharp end.But they must have their EU increases so they can continue to spend spend spend, fiddle their expenses, and feed us hot air and waffle.

Want to stimulate economic recovery?? weell here's how:
1. Cut taxes - let money ccirculate in the economy, not be lavished upon malingerers & the indolent!

2. Cut spending to the bone. End the socialist evil that is the welfare state.

3. cut red tape - abolish these silly 'elf & safety laws! do away with the legions of EU cucumber inspectors! Do away with regulators whose sole purpose is to strangle growth!

4. liberalise labour laws - end the minimum wage, criminalise trade unions. Then the economy will flourish!A Keynsian stimulus would have required supluses to have been run in the boom times.
This did not happen - in fact the last government was so incompetent that it did not even realise that it was running a structural deficit of £76bn in 06/07. Those advocates of Keynes were very quiet during the past decade - perhaps they believed the nonsense of "no more boom and bust". Either way, Keynes and his many disciples would be turning in their graves at the conduct of UK government policy for all of the last decade, and Keynes' ideas were made when the UK was a net exporter, had an Empire to fall back on, and government spending as a proportion of GDP was less than half what it is now.
A policy of running a deficit during a boom, followed by a bigger deficit during the inevitable bust is a recipe for national disaster, and people who propose such an action using the fig-leaf of Keynes should be sectioned under the mental health act and never be allowed in a position of power again.

German politicians have reached an agreement that will allow parliament to approve the setting up of a permanent eurozone bailout fund and the fiscal pact which eurozone leaders agreed to last year.  Angela Merkel's government and the opposition Social Democrats said they had agreed on the measures, which will give the Chancellor the two-thirds majority in parliament she needs when it goes to a vote next week.  There's a bit BUT though - Volker Kauder, the parliamentary leader of Mrs Merkel's party said again there would ne debt mutualisation in Europe, aka no eurobonds ... The head of the International Monetary Fund has piled pressure on Germany by recommending a series of crisis-fighting measures that chancellor Angela Merkel has resisted.  IMF managing director Christine Lagarde warned that the euro is under "acute stress" and urged eurozone leaders to channel aid directly to struggling banks rather than via governments. She also called on the European Central Bank to cut interest rates.  The comments came as Italy's prime minister Mario Monti, warned of the apocalyptic consequences if next week's summit of EU leaders were to fail.  The stark message from Lagarde, delivered to eurozone finance ministers who met in Luxembourg, will increase pressure to come up with a unified approach to tackle problems including Spain's struggling banks. She urged the 17 eurozone countries to consider jointly issuing debt, helping troubled banks directly, and suggested relaxing the strict austerity conditions imposed on countries that have received bailouts.....

Luxembourg's Jean-Claude Juncker has said he'll step down as chairman of the forum of the eurozone finance ministers this year, citing the heavy workload and his health.  Schaeuble has said he wants the job but Hollande is thought to be anxious about appointing a champion of austerity to such a key role.   If Germany gets the Eurogroup job, France gets to appoint their man as head of the bailout fund the European Stability Mechanism and vice versa.  Hollande is expected to put his petitions to Angela Merkel, Italy's Mario Monti and Spain's Mariano Rajoy at their talks in Rome on Friday.

Handful....

"Drachma" is an ancient Greek currency unit and translates as a "handful", which is a lot less than what Greece will need to pay off all its debts.

For two years, everyone has been asking what would happen if Greece left the euro and went back to the drachma. Now that time may be upon us. ... With Greece unable to devalue its currency, the country is hobbled with crippling debt payments it cannot afford. Even though it has cut its debt in half, Greece has been subject to much social unrest as five years of recession and bailout-imposed spending cuts have bitten hard.

Last week, a majority of Greeks voted for parties that want to rip up the country's bailout agreement with the European Union and International Monetary Fund (IMF) - including neo-Nazis.

The biggest winner was the leftist anti-bailout coalition, Syriza, whose share of the vote more than tripled and who describe the austerity imposed by the bailout as "barbaric".

Syriza is among those holding talks about forming a government, one that rejects policies of austerity, and if it comes to pass, a Syriza-led government will definitely not adhere to the terms of the bailout.....So how would Greece leave the euro?

No big announcement

In reality, the new prime minister probably will not announce it on TV one day, between broadcasts of the lottery and the football.

The new government will want to renegotiate some parts of the bailout, but if that doesn't happen, then Greece could simply stop paying its debt.

That would be a euro default.  Actually, a second, as Greece technically defaulted on its debts when it renegotiated a 50% write-off of its debts with its creditors earlier this year....And that would put the ball back in Brussels' court

Red carpets, pageantry, tuxedos, and "Deutschland Uber Ales".

THE RUSSIAN BEAR - Widespread reports of fraud in last Sunday's national parliamentary election have galvanized an opposition long marginalized by repressive policies and by state-run news media that virtually ignored them. Protests, some attracting thousands, rolled on for three consecutive nights in Moscow and St. Petersburg after the election showed unexpectedly fierce anger against the government and Prime Minister Putin's ruling United Russia party. United Russia suffered losses of more than 20 percent of seats it previously held in the State Duma, and critics and local election observers say even that result was inflated by fraud. Smoldering resentment caught fire, largely through social media, and the country on Saturday expects to see a massive protest rally in Moscow and demonstrations in some 70 other cities."This will be a watershed step in the development our democracy. We expect it to become the biggest political protest in 20 years," Ilya Ponomarev of the Left Front opposition group said Friday.There may soon be a symbol to the protests: white ribbons. A group of activists sent up a web site urging people to wear them in support of Saturday's demonstrations. They're not yet visible on Moscow's streets but some opposition leaders and even TV presenters are wearing them in their lapels.....

But... we are more into red carpets, pageantry, tuxedos, and "Deutschland Uber Ales". All of this goes to prove that the Ribbentrop -Molotov treatie is being implemented with vengeance and that the Russian Bear will fish the European ponds and The German Boot will stamp allover our nations without remorse !!! Beware of the German criminal record !

Spanish and Italian benchmark bond yields rose after the auctions, and the premium demanded to hold Spanish debt rather than lower-risk German bonds widened. Investors also focused on possible obstacles to the implementation of the Greek deal, with benchmark interbank lending rates for euros rising amid speculation some bondholders might not participate in the crucial debt exchange. Just days after policymakers toasted a €109bn (£96bn) bailout aimed at hauling Greece back from the brink of insolvency, speculation gathered pace that some of its hapless bondholders might shun a distressed debt exchange. There are also worries that the recent move to boost the powers of the European Union's bailout fund will not be enough to limit contagion and that its size will need to be increased to provide assistance for larger economies. Italian and Spanish bond yields were at levels seen before the Greek second bailout agreement amid renewed worries about contagion to debt-laden countries. The main European debt concern is now whether larger countries like Italy and Spain will get sucked into the mire. Peter Schaffrik, head of European rate strategy at RBC Capital Markets, said: "Over the past couple of days we have had a [re-escalation] of the crisis in the eurozone because the Greek deal isn't seen to be a solution, and at the same time we have the debt ceiling saga in the US. It all contributes to tension." The ratings agency Moody's has already cut Greece's debt rating by three notches to Ca, leaving it just one notch above what is considered default, and has said that the chance of a default is now "virtually 100%". Moody's warned that while last week's bailout package agreed by eurozone leaders would make it easier for Greece to reduce its debt, the country still faced medium-term solvency challenges and that there were significant risks in implementing the required reforms.

The ZEW index of analyst expectations rose for Romania's economic evolution by 3.6 points, to 33.4 points. For the entire EEC, the index rose 8.3 points, to 24.5 points. Romania was outranked by Croatia - 41 points, the Czech Republic - 37.3 points and Poland - 37.5 points. While experts are optimistic regarding Romania's economic outlook over the next six months, the perception of the current situation remains negative at 37.8 points, although it has improved by 12.2 points. Romania's current situation ranks it second to last among CEE states, as Hungary ranked last with -38 points. The Bucharest bourse's six-month outlook has worsened, according to the study, as the 10-share blue-chip index BET is awarded 21.9 points, compared to the previous 36.2 points. The leu-to-euro ratio's evolution was also revised, gaining 2.7 points, to 15.2 points. http://www.romanialibera.ro/actualitate/eveniment-117.html